Cinderella: Hired by the Prince

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE night was becoming oppressive. She was passed on to her next partner, who gently grilled her again, and then another who grilled her not so gently until she almost snapped at him. Finally supper was announced. She could escape now, she thought, but then a dumpy little lady with a truly magnificent tiara made a beeline for her, grasped her hands and introduced herself.

‘I’m Ramón’s Aunt Sofía. I’m so pleased to meet you.’ She tucked her arm into Jenny’s as if she was laying claim to her-as indeed she was, as there were those around them who were clearly waiting to start the inquisitions again.

‘Aunt…’

Sofía turned to see Ramón approaching. He had one of the formidable matrons on his arm. Queen of somewhere? But Sofía was not impressed.

‘Go away, Ramón,’ Sofía commanded. ‘I’m taking Jenny into supper. You look after Her Highness.’

‘Sofía was always bossy,’ the Queen of somewhere said, but she smiled, and Ramón gave his aunt a smile and gave Jenny a quick, fierce glance-one that was enough to make her toes curl-and led his queen away.

Sofía must rank pretty highly, Jenny thought, so dazed she simply allowed herself to be led. The crowd parted before them. Sofía led them to a small alcove set with a table and truly impressive tableware. She smiled at a passing servant and in two minutes there were so many delicacies before them Jenny could only gasp.

Sofía ate two bite-sized cream éclairs, then paused to demand why Jenny wasn’t doing likewise.

‘I’m rather in shock,’ Jenny confessed.

‘Me too,’ Sofía confessed. ‘And Ramón too, though we’re making the best of it.’

‘But Ramón’s the Crown Prince,’ Jenny managed. ‘How can he be intimidated?’ She could see him through the crowd. He drew every eye in the room. He looked truly magnificent-Crown Prince to the manor born.

‘Because he wasn’t meant to be royal,’ Sofía said darkly, but then her darkness disappeared and she smiled encouragingly at Jenny. ‘Just like you’re not. I’m not sure what Ramón’s told you so I thought maybe there’s things you ought to know.’

‘I know the succession was a shock,’ Jenny ventured, and Sofía nodded vigorously and ate another éclair.

‘Yes,’ she said definitely. ‘We were never expected to inherit. Ramón’s grandfather-my father-sent my mother, my younger brother and I out of the palace when my brother and I were tiny. We were exiled, and kept virtual prisoners on an island just off the coast. My mother was never permitted to step back onto the mainland.’

Jenny frowned. Why was she being told this? But she could do nothing but listen as Sofía examined a meringue from all angles and decided not.

‘That sounds dreadful,’ Sofía continued, moving on to a delicate chocolate praline, popping it in and choosing another. ‘But, in truth, the island is beautiful. It was only my mother’s pain at what was happening to her country, and at losing her elder son that hurt. As we grew older my younger brother married an islander-a lovely girl. Ramón is their son. So Ramón’s technically a prince, but until three months ago the only time he was at the palace was the night his father died.’

There were places here she didn’t want to go. There were places she had no right to go to. ‘He…he spends his life on his yacht,’ she ventured.

‘No, dear, only part of it, and that’s only since his mother and sister died. He trained as a builder. I think he started building things almost as soon as he could put one wooden block on top of another. He spends every dry season in Bangladesh, building houses with floating floors. Apparently they’re brilliant-villagers can adjust their floor levels as flood water rises. He’s passionate about it, but now, here he is, stuck as Crown Prince for ever.’

‘I imagine he was trained for it,’ Jenny said stiffly, still not sure where this was going.

‘Only in that my mother insisted on teaching us court manners,’ Sofía retorted. ‘It was as if she knew that one day we’d be propelled back here. We humoured her, though none of us ever expected that we would. Finally, my brother tried to reinstate my mother’s rights, to allow her to leave the island, and that’s when the real tragedy started.’

‘That was when Ramón’s father was killed?’

‘Yes, dear. By my father’s thugs,’ Sofía said, her plump face creasing into distress. The noise and bustle of the ballroom was nothing, ignored in her apparent need to tell Jenny this story. ‘My mother ached to leave, and we couldn’t believe my father’s vindictiveness could last for years. But last it did, and when my brother was old enough he mounted a legal challenge. It was met with violence and with death. My father invited my brother here, to reason with him, so he came and brought Ramón with him because he thought he’d introduce his little son to his grandfather. So Ramón was here when it happened, a child, sleeping alone in this dreadful place while his father was killed. Just…alone.’

She stared down at her chocolate, but she wasn’t seeing it. She was obviously still stunned at the enormity of what had happened. ‘That’s what royalty does,’ she whispered. ‘What is it they say? Absolute power corrupts absolutely. So my father had his own son killed, simply because he dared to defy him. We assume…we want to believe that it was simply his thugs going too far, meant to frighten but taking their orders past the point of reason. But still, my father must have employed them, and he must have known the consequences. This place…the whole of royalty is tainted by that murder. And now Carlos…the man who would have been Crown Prince if Ramón hadn’t agreed to come home…is in the wings, threatening. He’s here tonight.’

She gestured towards the supper table where a big man with more medals than Ramón was shovelling food into his mouth.

‘He makes threats but so quietly we can’t prove anything. He’s here always, with his unfortunate wife towed in his wake, and he’s just waiting for something to happen to Ramón. I can walk away-Ramón insists that I will walk away-but Ramón can’t.’

Jenny was struggling to take everything in. She couldn’t focus on shadows of death. She couldn’t even begin to think of Carlos and his threats. She was still, in fact, struggling with genealogy. And Ramón as a little boy, alone as his father died…

‘So…so the Crown Prince who’s just been killed was your older brother?’ she managed.

‘Yes,’ Sofía told her, becoming calm once more. ‘Not that I ever saw him after we left the palace. And he had a son, who also had a son.’ She shrugged. ‘A little boy called Philippe. There’s another tragedy. But it’s not your tragedy, dear,’ she said as she saw Jenny’s face. ‘Nor Ramón’s. Ramón worries, but then Ramón worries about everything.’ She hesitated, and then forged ahead as if this was something she’d rehearsed.

‘But, my dear, Ramón’s been talking about you,’ she confessed. ‘He says…he says you’re special. Well, I can see that. I watched Ramón’s face as he danced with you and it’s exactly the same expression I saw on his father’s face when he danced with his mother. If Ramón’s found that with you…’

‘He can’t possibly…’ Jenny started, startled, but Sofía was allowing no interruptions.

‘You can’t say it’s impossible if it’s already happened. All I’m saying is that you don’t have to be royal to be with Ramón. What I’m saying is give love a chance.’

‘How could I…?’ She stopped, bewildered.

‘By not staying in this palace,’ Sofía said, suddenly deadly serious. ‘By not even thinking about it. Ramón’s right when he tells me such a union is impossible, dangerous, unsuitable, and he can’t be distracted from what he must do. You don’t fit in and neither should you. Our real home, our lovely island, is less than fifteen minutes’ helicopter ride from here. If Ramón could settle you there as his mistress, he’d have an escape.’

‘An escape?’ she whispered, stunned.

‘From royalty,’ Sofía said bluntly. ‘Ramón needs to do his duty but if he could have you on the side…’ She laid a hand over Jenny’s. ‘It could make all the difference. And he’d look after you so well. I know he would. You’d want for nothing. So, my dear, will you listen to Ramón?’

‘If he asks…to have me as his some-time mistress?’ she managed.

‘I’m just letting you know his family would think it was a good thing,’ Sofía said, refusing to be deterred by Jenny’s obvious shock. ‘You’re not to take offence, but it’s nothing less than my duty to tell you that you’re totally unsuitable for this place, even if he’d have you here, which he won’t. You’re not who Ramón needs as a wife. He needs someone who knows what royalty is and how to handle it. That’s what royal pedigree is-there’s a reason for it. But, as for a partner he loves…that’s a different thing. If Ramón could have you now and then…’

She paused, finally beginning to flounder. The expression on Jenny’s face wasn’t exactly encouraging. She was finding it impossible to contain her anger, and her humiliation.

‘So you’d have him marry someone else and have me on the side,’ she said dangerously.

‘It’s been done for generation upon generation,’ Sofía said with asperity. Then she glanced up with some relief as a stranger approached, a youngish man wearing more medals than Ramón. ‘But here’s Lord Anthony, wanting an introduction. He’s frightfully British, my dear, but he’s a wonderful dancer. Ramón won’t have any more time for you tonight. He’ll have so little time… But I’m sure he could fit you in every now and then, if you’ll agree to the island. So you go and dance with Lord Anthony, and remember what I said when you need to remember it.’

Jenny danced almost on automatic pilot. She desperately wanted to leave, but slipping away when the world was watching was impossible. As Sofía had warned her, she barely saw Ramón again. He was doing his duty, dancing with one society dame after another.

She’d been lucky to be squeezed in at all, she thought dully. What was she doing here?

It wasn’t made better with her second ‘girls’ talk’ of the night. Another woman grabbed her attention almost straight after Sofía. This lady was of a similar age to Sofía, but she was small and thin, she had fewer jewels and she had the air of a frightened rabbit. But she was a determined frightened rabbit. She intercepted Jenny between partners. When the next man approached she hissed, ‘Go away,’ and stood her ground until they were left alone.

‘I’m Perpetua,’ she said, and then, as Jenny looked blank, she explained. ‘I’m Carlos’s wife.’

Carlos. The threat.

‘He’s not dangerous,’ Perpetua said, obviously reading her expression, and she steered her into the shadows with an air of quiet but desperate determination. ‘My husband’s all talk. All stupidity. It’s this place. It’s being royal. I just wanted to say…to say…’

She took a deep breath and out it came, as if it had been welled up for years. ‘They say you’re common,’ she said. ‘I mean…ordinary. Not royal. Like me. I was a schoolteacher, and I loved my work and then I met Carlos. For a while we were happy, but then the old Prince decided he liked my husband. He used to take him gambling. Carlos got sucked into the lifestyle, and that’s where he stays. In some sort of fantasy world, where he’s more royal than Ramón. He’s done some really stupid things, most of them at the Prince’s goading. In these last months when he thought he would inherit the throne, he’s been…a little bit crazy. There’s nothing I can do, but it’s so painful to see the way he is, the way he’s acting. And then I watched you tonight. The way you looked at Ramón when you were dancing.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Jenny managed.

‘Just get away from it,’ she whispered. ‘Whatever Ramón says, don’t believe it. Just run. Oh, I shouldn’t say anything. I’m a royal wife and a royal wife just shuts up. Do you want that? To be an appendage who just shuts up? My dear, don’t do it. Just run.’ And then, as yet another potential partner came to claim Jenny’s hand, she gave a gasping sob, shot Jenny one last despairing glance and disappeared into the crowd.

Just run. That was truly excellent advice, Jenny thought, as she danced on, on autopilot. It was the best advice she’d had all night. If she knew where she was, if she knew how to get back to the boat in the dark in the middle of a strange city, that was just what she’d do.

She’d never felt so alone. She was Cinderella without her coach and it wasn’t even midnight.

But finally the clock struck twelve. Right on cue, a cluster of officials gathered round Ramón as a formal guard of honour. Trumpets blared with a final farewell salute, and the Crown Prince Ramón of Cepheus was escorted away.

He’d be led to his harem of nubile young virgins, Jenny decided, fighting back an almost hysterical desire to laugh. Or cry. Or both. She was so weary she wanted to sink and, as if the thought had been said aloud, a footman was at her side, courteously solicitous.

‘Ma’am, I’m to ask if you’d like to stay on to continue dancing, or would you like to be escorted back to your chambers?’

‘I’d like to be escorted back to the yacht.’

‘That’s not possible, ma’am,’ he said. ‘The Prince’s orders are that you stay in the palace.’ And then, as she opened her mouth to argue, he added flatly, ‘There’s no transport to the docks tonight. I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’ll have to stay.’

So that, it seemed, was that. She was escorted back to the palace. She lay in her ridiculously ostentatious bedchamber, in her ridiculously ostentatious bed, and she tried for sleep.

How was a girl to sleep after a night like this?

She couldn’t. Her crimson ball-gown was draped on a hanger in the massive walk-in wardrobe. The diamond necklet still lay on her dresser. Her Cinderella slippers were on the floor beside her bed.

At least she’d kept both of them on, she thought ruefully. It hadn’t quite been a fairy tale.

Only it had been a fairy tale. Gianetta Bertin-Jenny to her friends-had attended a royal ball. She’d been led out onto the dance floor with a prince so handsome he made her knees turn to jelly. For those few wonderful moments she’d let herself be swept away into a magic future where practicalities disappeared and there was only Ramón; only her love.

And then his aunt had told her that she was totally unsuitable to be a royal wife but she could possibly be his mistress. Only not here. How romantic.

And then someone called Perpetua had warned her against royalty, like the voice of doom in some Gothic novel. Do not trust him, gentle maiden.

How ridiculous.

And, as if in response to her unanswerable question, someone knocked on the door.

Who’d knock on her bedroom door at three in the morning?

‘Who is it?’ she quavered, and her heart seemed to stop until there was a response.

‘I can’t get my boots off,’ a beloved voice complained from the other side of the door. ‘I was hoping someone might hang on while I pull.’

‘I… I believe my contract was all about muffins and sails,’ she managed, trying to make her voice not squeak, trying to kick-start her heart again while warnings and sensible decisions went right out of the window. Ramón.

‘I know I have no right to ask.’ There was suddenly seriousness behind Ramón’s words. ‘I know this isn’t sensible, I know I shouldn’t be here, but Jenny, if tonight is all there is then I’m sure, if we read the contract carefully, there might be something about boots. Something that’d give us an excuse for…well, something about helping me for this night only.’

‘Don’t you have a valet?’ she whispered and then wondered how he’d hear her through the door. But it was as if he was already in the room with her.

‘Valets scare the daylights out of me,’ he said. ‘They’re better dressed than I am. Please, Jenny love, will you help me off with my boots?’

‘I don’t think I’m brave enough.’

‘You helped a trapped whale. Surely you can help a trapped prince. For this night only.’

‘Ramón…’

‘Open the door, Gianetta,’ he said in a different voice, a voice that had her flinging back her bedcovers and flying to the door and tugging it open. Despite what Sofía had said, despite Perpetua’s grim warnings, this was Ramón. Her Ramón.

And there he was. He wasn’t smiling. He was just…him.

He opened his arms and she walked right in.

For a long moment she simply stood, held against him, feeling the strength of his heartbeat, feeling his arms around her. He was still in his princely uniform. There were medals digging into her cheek but she wasn’t complaining. His heart was beating right under those medals, and who cared about a bit of metal anyway?

Who cared what two royal women had said to her? Who cared that this was impossible?

They had this night.

He kissed the top of her head and he held her tight and she felt protected and loved-and desperate to haul him into the room right there and then.

But there was a footman at the top of the stairs. Just standing, staring woodenly ahead. He was wigged, powdered, almost a dummy. But he was real.

It was hard to seize a prince and haul him into her lair when a footman was on guard.

‘Um…we have an audience,’ she whispered at last.

He kissed her hair again and said gravely, ‘Do you care?’

‘If we walk into my room and shut the door we won’t have an audience,’ she tried.

‘Ah, but the story will out,’ he said gravely.

‘So it should if you go creeping into strange women’s bedrooms in the small hours. I should yell the house down.’

She was trying to sound indignant. She was trying to pull back so she could be at arm’s length, so she could see his face. She wasn’t trying hard enough. She sounded happy-and there was no way she was pulling back from this man.

‘You could if you wanted and you’d have help,’ he said gravely. ‘The footman’s on guard duty. In case the Huns invade-or strange women don’t want strange men doing this creeping thing you describe. But if the woman was to welcome this strange man, then we don’t need an audience. Gianetta, are you hungry?’

Hungry. The thought was so out of left field that she blinked.

‘Hungry?’

‘I’m starving. I was hoping you might come down to the kitchen with me.’

‘After I’ve pulled your boots off?’

‘Yup.’

‘You want me to be your servant?’

‘No,’ he said, lightness giving way instantly to a gravity she found disconcerting. ‘For this night, I want you to be my friend.’

Her friend, the prince?

Her friend, her lover?

Ramón.

Part-time mistress?

Forget Sofía, she told herself fiercely. Forget Perpetua. Tonight she’d hold on to the fairy tale.

‘So…so there’s no royal cook?’ she managed.

‘There are three, but they scare me more than my valet. They wear white hats and speak with Italian accents and say béchamel a lot.’

‘Oh, Ramón…’

‘And there’s no security camera in the smaller kitchen,’ he told her, and she looked up into his face and it was all she could do not to burst into spontaneous combustion.

‘So will you come?’ His eyes dared her.

‘I’m coming.’ Mistress or not, dangerous or not, right now she’d take whatever he wanted to give. Stupid? Who knew? She only knew that there was no way she could walk away from this man this night.

‘Slippers and robe first,’ he suggested and she blinked.

‘Pardon?’

‘Let’s keep it nice past the footman.’ He grinned. ‘And do your belt up really tight. I like a challenge.’

‘Ramón…’

‘Second kitchen, no security camera,’ he said and gave her a gentle push back into her bedroom. ‘Slippers and gown. Respectability’s the thing, my love. All the way down the stairs.’

They were respectable all the way down the stairs. The footman watched them go, his face impassive. When they reached the second kitchen another footman appeared and opened the door for them. He ushered them inside.

‘Would you like the door closed?’ he said deferentially and Ramón nodded.

‘Absolutely. And make sure the Huns stay on that side.’

‘The Huns?’ the man said blankly.

‘You never know what they’re planning,’ Ramón said darkly. ‘If I were you, I’d take a walk around the perimeter of the palace. Warn the troops.’

‘Your Highness…’

‘Just give us a bit of privacy,’ Ramón said, relenting at the look of confusion on the man’s face. ‘Fifty paces from the kitchen door, agreed?’

Finally there was a smile-sort of-pulled back instantly with a gasp as if the man had realized what he was doing and maybe smiling was a hanging offence. Impassive again, he snapped his heels and moved away and Ramón closed the door and leaned on it.

‘This servant thing’s got knobs on it. Three months and they still treat me like a prince.’

‘You are a prince.’

‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Not now. I’m me and you’re you and the kitchen door is closed. And so…’

And so he took her into his arms and he held her so tight the breath was crushed from her body. He held her like a man drowning holding on to a lifeline. He held her and held her and held her, as if there was no way he could ever let her go.

He didn’t kiss her. His head rested on her hair. He held her until her heart beat in synchronisation with his. Until she felt as if her body was merging with his, becoming one. Until she felt as if she was truly loved-that she’d come home.

How long they stayed there she could never afterwards tell-time disappeared. This was their moment. The world was somewhere outside that kitchen door, the servants, Sofía’s words, Perpetua’s warnings, tomorrow, but for now all that mattered was this, her Ramón. Her love.

The kitchen was warm. An old fire-stove sent out a gentle heat. A small grey cat slept in a basket by the hearth. All Jenny had seen of this palace was grandeur, but here in this second kitchen the palace almost seemed a home.

It did feel like home. Ramón was holding her against his heart and she was where she truly belonged.

She knew it was an illusion, and so must he. Maybe that was why he held her for so long, allowing nothing, no words, no movement, to intrude. As if, by holding her, the world could be kept at bay. As if she was something that he must lose, but he’d hold on while he still could.

Finally he kissed her as she needed to be kissed, as she ached to be kissed, and she kissed him back as if he was truly her Ramón and the royal title was nothing but a crazy fantasy locked securely on the other side of the door.

With the Huns, she thought, somewhat deliriously. Reality and the Huns were being kept at bay by powdered, wigged footmen, giving her this time of peace and love and bliss.

She loved this man with all her heart. Maybe what Sofía had said was wrong. Maybe the Perpetua thing was crazy.

The cat stirred, coiling out of her basket, stretching, then stepping daintily out to inspect her food dish. The tiny movement was enough to make them stir, to let a sliver of reality in. But only a sliver.

‘She’s only interested in her food,’ Jenny whispered. ‘Not us.’

‘I don’t blame her. I’m hungry, too.’ Ramón’s voice was husky with passion, but his words were so prosaic that she chuckled. It made it real. Her Prince of the Blood, dressed in medals and tassels and boots that shone like mirrors, was smiling down at her with a smile that spoke of devilry and pure latent sex-and he was hungry.

‘For…for what?’ she managed, and the devilry in his eyes darkened, gleamed, sprang into laughter.

‘I’d take you on the kitchen table, my love,’ he said simply. ‘But I just don’t trust the servants that much.’

‘And we’d shock the cat,’ she whispered and he chuckled.

‘Absolutely.’

He was trying to make his voice normal, Jenny thought. He was trying to make their world somehow normal. In truth, if Ramón carried out his earlier threat to untie the cord of her dressing gown, if he took that to its inevitable conclusion, there was no way she’d deny him. Only sense was prevailing. Sort of.

Where he led, she’d follow, but if he was trying to be prosaic…maybe she could be, too.

‘I could cook in this kitchen,’ she said, eyeing the old range appraisingly, the rows of pots and pans hanging from overhead rails, the massive wooden table, worn and pitted from years of scrubbing.

‘The pantry adjoins both kitchens,’ Ramón said hopefully. ‘I’m sure there’s eggs and bacon in there.’

‘Are you really hungry?’

‘At dinner I had two queens, one duke and three prime ministers within talking range,’ he said. ‘They took turns to address me. It’s very rude for a Crown Prince to eat while being addressed by a Head of State. My Aunt Sofía was watching. If I’d eaten I would have had my knuckles rapped.’

‘She’s a terrifying lady,’ Jenny said and he grinned.

‘I love her to bits,’ he said simply. ‘Like I love you.’

‘Ramón…’

‘Gianetta.’

‘This is…’

‘Just for tonight,’ he said softly and his voice grew bleak. ‘I know this is impossible. After tonight I’ll ask nothing of you, but Gianetta…just for tonight can we be…us?’

His face was grim. There were vast problems here, she knew, and she saw those problems reflected in his eyes. Sofía had said the ghost of his father made this palace hateful, yet Ramón was stuck here.

Can we be us?

Maybe they could go back to where they’ started.

‘Do you want bacon and eggs, or do you want muffins?’ she asked and tried to make her voice prosaic.

‘You could cook muffins here?’ Astonishment lessened the grimness.

‘You have an oven warmed for a cat,’ she said. ‘It seems silly to waste it. It’ll mean you need to wait twenty minutes instead of five minutes for eggs and bacon.’

‘And the smell will go all through the palace,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘There’s an alibi if ever I heard one. We could give a couple to Manuel and Luis.’

‘Manuel and Luis?’

‘Our Hun protectors. They think I’m taunting them if I use their real names, but surely a muffin couldn’t be seen as a taunt.’ His eyes were not leaving hers. He wanted her. He ached for her. His eyes said it all, but he was keeping himself rigidly under control.

‘You think we might find the ingredients?’ he asked, but she was already opening the panty door, doing a visual sweep of the shelves, then checking out the first of three massive refrigerators. As anxious as he to find some way of keeping the sizzle between them under control, and to keep the tension on his face at bay.

‘There’s more ingredients than you can shake a stick at.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Lots of ingredients,’ she said in satisfaction. ‘It seems a shame to abandon bacon entirely. You want bacon and cheese muffins, or double chocolate chip?’

‘Both,’ he said promptly. ‘Especially if I get to lick the chocolate chip bowl.’

‘Done,’ she said and smiled at him and his smile met hers and she thought, whoa I am in such trouble. And then she thought, whatever Sofía said, or Perpetua said, no matter how impossible this is, I’m so deeply in love, there’s no way I’ll ever be able to climb out.